


Undone

by Narkito



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Gen, Off-screen Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-12
Updated: 2011-04-11
Packaged: 2017-10-17 23:30:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/182519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Narkito/pseuds/Narkito
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John dies and it absolutely devastates Sherlock, to the point where Lestrade steps in and tries to help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Where  Sherlock Comes Undone and Something Breaks Inside

**Author's Note:**

> This was written in response to a prompt in the [sherlockbbc_fic](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com) kink meme, which can be found [here](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/6375.html?thread=30041575#t30041575).

He’s at Angelo’s waiting for John (who is inexplicably late) when he gets the call. He rushes to the hospital and manages to get just in time to watch the staff wheel him into the operating theatre. There’s internal bleeding, various broken bones and a ripped artery, they’re doing what they can, is there anyone else he wishes for them to contact? He doesn’t trust himself to personally call Harry, so he hands over that task to the staff and goes back to the waiting area.

Lestrade calls to his mobile half a dozen times, but he doesn’t answer. He’s not sure what to say. He sits, he stands, he walks, he contemplates buying a pack of cigarettes and then walks some more. Eventually he turns off his phone, between Lestrade’s texts and Harry’s calls ( _how did she manage to get his number?_ ), he’s getting too anxious. He doesn’t like that; it makes it very hard for him to think straight.

Somewhere in-between the 4 hour mark and the massive loss of blood, things go terribly wrong and John dies at precisely 23:32 of a Tuesday night. Death by lorry; how mundane and stupid and plain backwards. The doctor that comes to tell him has obviously changed out of his blood-stained clothes, and sports a grim face with squared shoulders to go with it. He doesn’t need to think about it very hard before he knows exactly what’s going on.

A few specks of blood ( _John’s_ blood) remain just above the collar of his surgical t-shirt. Sherlock can’t really look at anything else and when the man ( _in his fifties, perhaps?_ ) puts a hand in his shoulder, he’s almost startled out of his skin. _What was he saying?_ Doesn’t really matter anymore.

He turns around and walks out through the A&E, straight to the main street and hails a cab. As soon as he enters the vehicle, he turns his mobile on and texts Lestrade. Short and to the point: _John is dead, need to make arrangements. Won’t be available for a week. SH._

He has slept a total of 4 hours in the past 3 days. After the funeral he feels lonelier than ever. Mrs Hudson leaves him food around, and tries to console him. She tells him how much of a good person he was; she touches his hair and puts a hand to his face with teary eyes. He lets her do it, he imagines he might take some comfort out of it; but he’s wrong, it only leaves him feeling worse than before with an indescribable ache in his chest. That night he rakes the apartment for his stash, it’s obviously gone. John had found them and left stupid notes where his cocaine and other assorted paraphernalia had once been. _Just eat and apple and take a walk. Don’t be stupid, this will only fry your brain. Take me out to dinner instead_. The shock, the memory (the pain), had only been strong enough to keep him out of trouble for exactly 3 days and 7 hours.

He’s bored out of his mind. Lestrade and his people tiptoeing around him on crime scenes only make him annoyed, not that the crimes scenes had been particularly interesting or thrilling, mind you. He was obviously being called as a way for them to keep an eye on him; Anderson and Donovan barely doing half-arsed jobs of mocking and teasing him. But even in his intoxicated-by-grief state, he can outsmart them. He is, in fact, a proper genius.

He walks around a corner and into an alley, and sighs in frustration as he doesn’t find what he’s looking for. He’s been out of the loop too long, most of his contacts have been arrested or have changed locations in an effort to _not_ get arrested. Resigned to his drugless state, he turns around and heads for the next location. Eventually, after an hour and a half of searching, he finds what he wants and brings it back to the flat. The tinnitus sets in earlier than expected, but he rides it out and then his mind becomes razor sharp and everything in the kitchen shines under a new light. In this euphoric condition he feels invincible and great, he also has an acute need to read a particular book he thinks he’s left in the bedroom.

His room is, as usual, an utter mess. And he’s suddenly angered by this. He throws the covers of his bed out the door and goes to his desk, but can’t even manage to recall the name of the book he was looking for, and this just makes his blood boil even more; he throws everything to the floor and kicks most of his stuff and experiments away. He stomps on his clothes and claws at his face. He’s never been like this before, not even as a child, when his tantrums were dreadful and destructive. He feels like breaking something pretty and revelling in it. He loses his step and falls on his left hand, doing a number on it. But who cares?! Nobody cares anymore!

When he’s done, he retires to the sofa, where he somehow manages to sleep it off. Next thing he knows, there’re voices coming from downstairs, one he vaguely recognises as Mrs Hudson’s and the other, he isn’t sure. His brain’s too foggy and exhausted to work properly. He doesn’t move, though, he just lays there, his face to the back of the sofa, not enough energy to actually care about what’s going on. The footsteps are coming closer through the stairs and then someone is to his side. He can feel the presence and by the smell he deduces it’s Lestrade. _Maybe a really gruesome case to heighten his spirits?_

“Christ!”

 _It is Lestrade_ , he thinks, and manages the energy to turn around.

“Sherlock? Are you alright? Sherlock!” He’s shaking him a bit by the shoulder now, which actually helps with the fogginess.

“Is there a case?” _What time is it?_ He thinks two in the afternoon, by the shades the light is casting under Lestrade’s eyes.

“No, there was a case, yesterday, when I called, but you didn’t answer. You’ve been using again, haven’t you?” It isn’t posed a question, not really.

“That’s a no on the case then. What are you doing here?”

He doesn’t get an answer. Judging by the noise, Lestrade is going through the kitchen cabinets. Sherlock gets up just in time to watch the detective walk away in the direction of the bathroom. He swiftly follows.

“Hey, those things cost money you know?”

Lestrade doesn’t even dignify the protest with an answer, he just proceeds to flush the remains of the coke down the toilet and give him a stern look. Sherlock knows better than to physically stop him.

They stay like this for a while, Sherlock propped against the door frame and Lestrade, arms crossed over his chest, looking at him in something that is pretty obviously disappointment.

Finally Lestrade breaks the silence. “Do I need to arrest you? Do I need to throw you in jail so you stop?”

Sherlock feels something akin to embarrassment or, god forbid, _shame_ , flutter inside him. He fights not to show it, so he does his best to keep an uninterested look.

“That won’t be necessary, no. Maybe if you offered better puzzles I wouldn’t have to look somewhere else for distraction.”

“Sherlock, don’t try my patience, I swear...” he draws a long breath and sighs it away, “when was the last time you ate?”

“I can take care of myself, I’m not a child!” Bits of last night’s anger bubbling up. And he feels so lost at that, he almost wants to apologise.

“God dammit, Sherlock, yes you are, you’re a bloody child!”

He goes past him, and into the kitchen, where he picks up all the paraphernalia in plain sight, puts it in a stray shopping bag and then into his pocket.

“Next time I find you using, I’m not protecting you.” Lestrade goes downstairs in a swirl of irritation, and just when he’s about to reach the door, “you should have that hand looked at.” And then he is gone.

Sherlock looks at his hand and tries closing it into a fist. It hurts all over and it’s swollen, his wrist starting to turn black and blue. He grabs a dish towel, goes to the fridge, takes some ice out, and goes back to the sofa, where he stares at nothing until the ice melts and drips to the floor. He can barely feel his hand anymore.

The next morning Harry comes by to pick some of John’s things. They had talked about this after the funeral, and Sherlock had agreed out of sheer politeness. He just hoped he wasn’t home when Harry came by. When the doorbell rings, he’s not really expecting it, and then he remembers. He stands up, albeit if to go open the door, or go hide, he’s not sure. Mrs Hudson saves him the trouble of deciding by opening the door and greeting Harry. Apparently Mrs Hudson knew exactly when she was coming.

Harry looks genuinely surprised to see him there; maybe he is a bit predictable after all. He opens his mouth to speak, but then abruptly closes it and sits back on the sofa, looking the other way. Harry just goes past him, past the mess on the hallway and into John’s bed. Mrs Hudson is there too, but she doesn’t follow.

“Oh, Sherlock, look at the mess you’ve made.” And she says it in such a caring tone that it’s almost hurtful to hear. So he looks at the floor, at an open magazine ( _probably John’s, I wonder if Harry would want to take this as well?_ ), an ad for a car, the newest model of Volkswagen, gets his attention, and it seems vastly more interesting then what’s going on around him.

When Harry leaves, she tells him she left some things up in the room, for him to look at, if he doesn’t want them, then he’s free to do with them as he sees fit. Whatever that is, yes, you can give them away if you want to. She also says goodbye, and take care, whilst she eyes the mess of the hallway; Sherlock’s covers still in a heap against the wall.

Once she’s out, Sherlock goes up there to see, to inspect, what she’s left behind. She’s taken mostly personal things, photographs, a couple of John’s letters when he was in the war, a journal he had tried to keep once, his laptop, an engraved pen. She’s left most of his jumpers, trousers, shoes, a coat, some socks. And didn’t even bother going through his underwear, if she had, she would’ve found John’s prescription pad, carefully tucked under his socks, and next to it, a bottle of painkillers. _Of course there would be painkillers, even for psychosomatic pain, you can’t let a patient without treatment even if you know their pain is coming from a troubled mind_. He doesn’t dare touching more of his stuff, so he leaves everything where it is, he’ll handle it later, some time, eventually. He’s on the second step of the stairs, on his way down, when he stops. The prescription pad is bothering him, he’s trying hard to restrain himself, but other part of his brain, a stronger part, is telling him how he needs to sleep, and concentrate and generally function if he wants to keep his position as the only consulting detective of the world. He goes right back, not trying to think too much about it, he rummages around for a pen and then writes himself two prescriptions: one for sleeping pills, and the other for modafinil, a stimulant for the times he needs to remain awake. He’s not too sure about getting them filled at the pharmacy, but he tries anyway, if he gets caught, then he gets caught.

He’s gone through half of the bottle of the sleeping pills and other assorted painkillers ( _John’s_ ), when something unexpected happens. He overdoses. Mixing the pills, all of them, had seemed like a good idea at the time.

He doesn’t know how, but he wakes up to the smell of sterilised walls and floors, and to a rather upset Lestrade. _The hospital, then_. There’s an IV pushing fluids to him. And a heart monitor beeping away his existence. _There, another heartbeat gone._

Sherlock tries to speak, but he can’t get past the desert in his mouth. Lestrade catches on and gives him some water. Some very stale water. _How long has he been here, anyway?_ He touches his face, there’s faint stubble above his upper lip and the cheeks, but he hasn’t kept up much with his hygiene, so who knows when was the last time he shaved.

“You almost gave your landlady a heart attack. She found you passed out in the sofa, the emergency called my office, thinking it was me, because apparently you had my detective ID.”

“Yeah, well” his voice all croaky and wrong, “I pickpocket you when you’re annoying.”

“Excellent then, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to do just that in the future.”

“Is this a way of saying, ‘thank god you’re alive?’ because I’m not following.”

“Sherlock Holmes not catching up, now that’s a first... I’m moving in with you.”

“I’m in the hospital, it doesn’t count. And you’re not moving in, I forbid it.”

“Look, if you keep at it, you’re going to kill yourself. This thing,” he pointed at the IV fluids “isn’t just to rehydrate you; you’re also quite obviously underweight. Not to mention you had four nicotine patches on your arm, what the hell were you thinking? I don’t care if you don’t like the idea, I’m moving in with you, in fact I already did it, so it’s settled, you don’t get a say in this.”

“It’s my flat, it’s my life, and I get to decide with whom I share my life with.”

“Well, considering you’re being extra reckless with it right now, your privileges have been revoked. Is either this or staying at the hospital for mental evaluation and everything, the works. You decide.”

Sherlock seemed to actually give some thought to it, his face paler than usual, even more so against the sharp contrast of the room, he can’t really make eye contact with Lestrade, and that makes him wonder. Does he want Lestrade to move in? Does he desperately need someone, something to keep him grounded?

“Get out of my room, I want to be alone.”

“Should I tell them to keep you here for evaluation, or you want to go home, with me?”

“It’s not like you’re giving me a choice in the matter, now get out. I want to sleep. Out!”

They discharged him the following day, with very specific instructions on what to eat and how often to eat it. He also had a follow up scheduled in two weeks. He had forgotten all of this before he even walked out of the hospital, of course, escorted by a grim looking Lestrade who had taken him by the elbow and wouldn’t let go. He was dressed in plain trousers and very casual shoes, something that screamed personal leave to Sherlock, even the more reason to remain quiet on the way to the flat.


	2. Where Some Fixing Is Required

At the flat things are tidy and clean. It almost smells like the hospital he just left. Lestrade’s bags are next to the door, waiting for Sherlock to dismiss him to a place where he can keep them and sleep. He stands with his back to the kitchen soaking in the new look of the flat, and he hates it with a passion.

“Go take a bath or a shower or something, you’re starting to smell.”

Sherlock, doesn’t argue, and does what he’s asked. The water is so hot it actually hurts his skin, but at the same time it feels very good to take that entire sterile environment off him.

Lestrade, in the mean time, goes about in the kitchen making tea and setting the table. He doesn’t quite remember what Sherlock liked to eat when he was hangover, but chocolate and butter biscuits will have to suffice for now, until he can get supper going. He still doesn’t know how to ask Sherlock for the other room, John’s room, or even if he should; the sofa doesn’t look so bad really, or just putting a mattress on the floor, next to the sofa. If that were the case, it would also give him the advantage of hearing Sherlock sneaking out, because, if he is hooked into drugs again, he will try to sneak out, he’ll do anything for a fix, he knows, he was there last time and it wasn’t pretty.

Just as he’s about to go check on Sherlock, he appears in the hallway in his pyjamas and robe, barely sparing a look to Lestrade’s direction he proceeds to plop himself onto the sofa.

“I cleaned the upstairs room for you.” Sherlock’s voice is distant. It creeps him a little bit, but he can’t really show it, it would only make it worse, it would only make _him_ worse.

“You sure? I _can_ sleep on the sofa.”

“Yeah, well, the living room is my place; I don’t want you cluttering it.” With that he turns away, stretched as far as the space will allow him, facing the back of the sofa, and not mumbling another word, even when offered tea and biscuits, which he apparently refuses by way of ignoring the question altogether.

John’s... _his_ room is cold. He settles his bags on the floor and gets himself busy making the bed; takes the covers and puts them in place. Next he takes some of his clothes out, looking for his pyjamas. He only finds his bottoms, though, so he settles for a night sleep on his bottoms and the first t-shirt he can manage to get out of his luggage without making much of a mess. Downstairs he can hear Sherlock rummaging around in the kitchen, and he has to resist the urge to go check on him. It feels weird to be in this room, even weirder considering he’ll have to sleep here for the next month, at the very least. He gets into bed and falls asleep immediately; he doesn’t even remember hitting the pillow.

He wakes up ten past eight in the morning. And there’s a profound silence in the place. That scares him a bit. He gets out of bed and goes by Sherlock’s room. The door is ajar, so he peeks, but Sherlock isn’t there. He goes to the living room and spots him there, on the sofa, where he had pretty much left him last night, his rather noisy midnight trip to the kitchen aside. He’s awake.

“Good morning”. There’s no answer. He pretty much expected that too. “You slept here?” Again, no answer. “Did you sleep at all?” Sherlock’s face twitches at that. No sleeping then. He’ll see to it later. “Breakfast?” He doesn’t expect an answer this time; it’s just a way to fill the silence. Sherlock might not talk for days on end by his own volition, but that doesn’t mean he should encourage the whole shut off behaviour. He knows he’ll get an answer, eventually.

He fixes breakfast for both of them, and sets it on the table as loudly as possible. Sherlock hasn’t moved an inch since he started, his eyes lost somewhere past the opposite wall. He knows he shouldn’t startle him or anything, but the man needs to eat, pronto, he’s a bloody skeleton by now. So he musters some courage and goes by his side, sits and stares at his forehead. He’ll wait it out for a bit, he knows how squeamish Sherlock can get under his stare.

“You do understand that if you don’t eat I’ll just shove some food down your throat, right?”

Sherlock gives him a sharp look from behind a stray curl of hair and walks to the table. His robe making a scratchy sound on his way. The chair scraping the floor as he sits down.

“I don’t like toast.”

“I don’t care, we’re having toast.” Lestrade sits in front of him and drinks his tea and eats his toast, giving regular looks at Sherlock, to make sure he is actually eating and not just moving the food around.

It’s cold again, the tea doing nothing to keep his bare arms warm. It’s cloudy outside, and it looks like it might rain any moment. He’s glad he did some shopping before bringing Sherlock home.

“You might want to shower again today.”

“Oh? Since when you’re so preoccupied with my hygiene habits?”

“Since I live with you. You didn’t wash your hair yesterday, you positively reek today.”

“Well, all the more reason to not live with me then.”

“You can’t gross me out of this Sherlock; I’ve had you vomit all over my shoes, and clothes. Some musty odour coming from your head is nothing in comparison.”

Sherlock half scoffs, half laughs at that. Junkie’s humour.

“I’m doing the washing later, anything you want washed?”

“I thought you had already searched the entire flat...”

“Yeah, I was looking for drugs and pills, not dirty clothes, so anything?”

“I don’t know...”

“I’ll go into your room then, pick up everything that looks like it could use a wash.”

“Fine, I don’t care.”

“Good, now finish your breakfast, I wasn’t bluffing about shoving food down your throat.”

They had told him at the hospital that Sherlock would be kind of slow and sleepy for the next 48 hours, because of what he had ingested and some of the other medication they administered; they also told him it would be best if he wasn’t alone, at all. The doctor insisted on keeping all doors open at all times, and check on him every half an hour or so. In a nutshell, they had put Sherlock bloody Holmes on suicide watch. Now, _that_ was a first. Sherlock wasn’t so much suicidal as he was just careless with his own life, Lestrade didn’t know exactly what the difference was, but it seemed important to point out there was one. The doctor had shaken his hand and reminded him that if in doubt, he should just dial the emergency number and have him brought back to the hospital, where they could keep a closer eye on him. _Ludicrous_ , he thought, and left it at that.

He was in Sherlock’s room now. His bed was unmade and a pile of-- crap, his mind supplied, littered the bed. Clothes, books, a coat, socks, a pair of shoes, a couple of test tubes with dried stuff in them, and who knows what else. He took it all, and placed it on the desk. Some jumpers and socks fell from the pile, so he set them back on the desk, arranging sleeves and books, to better accommodate the load, nothing seemed washing-worthy though, he took another look around and spotted the clothes from yesterday in a heap next to the bed and threw them over his shoulder. He tidied the bed the best he could and grabbed a jumper from the desk pile. He was freezing by now. He needed to put something on, immediately.

He went back out, up to his room and put on jeans and trainers. Took his dirty clothes along with Sherlock’s and came back downstairs. It had started raining and Sherlock was watching the drops collide with each other, forming wet paths down the window. _In some aspects he was just a child, really._

“OK, you need to go to do the washing with me now, Sherlock, I’m not leaving you alone in here, I don’t care what you wear, just put on a coat, shoes and off we go, if you want to shower or something, I’ll wait for you.”

Sherlock had turned around, irritation all over his face, but then stopped dead in his tracks, jaw set and teeth almost grinding. His nostrils flaring up, and his eyes squinting just so. He was mad alright, Lestrade just didn’t know at what exactly, until he looked down to himself and saw the jumper. Of course, he had completely forgotten about it by now, hadn’t given it a second thought after putting it on.

“Ah, yes, sorry, I was really cold, don’t worry, I’ll wash it and...”, he didn’t get to finish his sentence, Sherlock had crossed the distance separating them in two long strides and was now forcefully wrestling the jumper off Lestrade.

“Sherlock! What the hell?” he was trying really hard to just get him off him, but couldn’t, somehow Sherlock had thrown them both down to the floor, and was working an arm out of the sleeve; eyes wild and cheeks slightly red from the exertion.

“Shut up! You don’t get to wear it!” Lestrade was doing his best fighting Sherlock off, but when he tried to knee him in the groin, he knew he had to start really defending himself; this was a Sherlock completely out of control.

Sherlock was screaming intelligible things by now, something about John and his clothes. Lestrade’s hand was firmly set under Sherlock’s jaw, in an effort to keep him away. He was working Sherlock’s arms with his other hand, trying to flip him over and get the higher position. Sherlock managed to punch him once, straight on the left cheek; left his ear ringing and sent his left eye into a swirl of maddening blurriness, but he had taken advantage of the movement and managed to put Sherlock on the floor, next to him, and hugged him from behind, immobilising his legs with his own, and crossing Sherlock’s arms over his chest by taking him by the wrists and roughly pining him on that position. Sherlock was livid. Breathing through clenched teeth and fighting to break free. Slowly his ragged breathing and convulsing became quieter, morphing into a tired panting to match Lestrade’s, whose eye had stopped hurting so much, and his ear wasn’t ringing anymore.

“Christ, Sherlock, what the _fuck_ was that?”

Sherlock remained quiet for a few seconds, and then his breathing started picking up again, Lestrade at first thought he was winding up, trying to get him off him, but there was something distinctly different about this. Then he felt it, the warm tears trickling on his hands, where he was still holding Sherlock by his wrists. He immediately relaxed, and let go of Sherlock’s arms and legs, Sherlock turn around and buried himself on Lestrade’s chest in one swift motion that reminded him too much of his 5 year old nephew. Pulling his (John’s) jumper by the handful, Sherlock started to tremble even harder. Lestrade hugged him, pulling him in a slightly more comfortable position, and felt silly doing so, two grown men, one of them crying on the floor, the other one hugging him. His father would’ve slapped him across the face on the spot if he ever saw him like that.

Lestrade tucked him under his jaw and patted his back. Not knowing what to say, he supposed not saying anything was probably for the best. The smell from Sherlock’s hair kept him from getting too comfortable, but also made him ache inside. He wished he could just wash his hair, wash his clothes, cook three meals a day and make it all go away. Sherlock had such vacant eyes, and a tired look. The bags under his eyes stretching impossibly low, making him look at least 8 years older than he really was. It had reminded him of himself, when his mother had died; the gut wrenching feeling, the constant gasping for air, but never really catching your breath; feeling lost and somehow betrayed. Some minutes pass and Sherlock stops trembling, giving shuddering breaths at regular intervals. Lestrade starts to peel him slowly away from him. Sherlock’s eyes are puffy now, the vacant look still there.

“Want to go to your room now? Maybe get some sleep?” No answer, not even a flicker of recognition of what was being said. “Come on, you’ve got to help me with this, I can’t carry you to the bedroom, stand up.” He grabbed Sherlock by the hand and pulled him to his feet. It was immediately obvious that Sherlock was slightly out of it, the exhaustion screwing with his stability and coordination. Lestrade wondered if he might actually carry the other man to his room, but decided against it. On behalf of Sherlock’s dignity, he was to merely help him stay upright enough to walk the twenty odd paces to his room. He passed Sherlock’s arm behind his neck and felt the soft fabric of the robe against the rough fabric of the jumper. He wanted to extrapolate from there and make some sort of statement about Sherlock and himself, but he thought of his father and Sherlock’s dignity, and neither of them would allow it.

The room is exactly as he left it. He sits Sherlock on his bed and helps him out of the robe, he then takes off the jumper and leaves it on top of the desk pile. It’s still raining outside and getting colder by the minute. His arms get chilled after just a few seconds, his skin rising in protest, leaving him visibly marked and vulnerable. Sherlock has worked himself under the covers and is staring at him, which he takes as his cue to leave, but just as he’s about to move, Sherlock takes him by the wrist, and squeezes, hard. He looks at his wrist and at Sherlock’s hand, his skin is pale and he’s cold too, the bony hand making him uncomfortable; sometimes he forgets exactly how young Sherlock really is, and his arm hair stands up even higher.

“Please stay”, it’s spoken in such a soft manner, that Lestrade is trying to decide if it actually happened. Then, abruptly, Sherlock releases his grip and wearily flings his arm across his face, taking a deep breath and clutching the bed covers with the other hand.

Lestrade sighs and goes around the bed to sit and work on his laces, Sherlock peeks under his arm and turns to face the window. He’s only aware of Lestrade getting into bed by the dip on it. He aligns himself with Sherlock’s body, but doesn’t touch him. Sherlock can feel all the heat from the bed and his own going to Lestrade. He kind of wishes to put his face on his chest, see if the cold from Lestrade can draw some of the heat out of his complexion, make him lighter somehow. He also wishes he’d had the courage to do this with John, not that he has a lot of courage now, but at least acknowledging the need for him to stay at his side, the physical need to touch him from time to time. It’s too late now, _obviously_.

Lestrade ends up on the other side of Sherlock's bed just to make sure he actually sleeps, or so he tells himself, he does it because he cares, because Sherlock is mostly alone in this, because he doesn’t know how to hurt, not without destroying himself in the process. He knows Sherlock’s got a brother, but he’s yet to be informed about who he is, what he does for a living and whether he cares for Sherlock or not. For all he knows, this Mycroft person could be an ever worse projection of his brother, a proper criminal mastermind. He also knows that Sherlock will allow himself to wither away before actually asking for help. He has the impulse to hug Sherlock again; instead he arranges the covers tightly around Sherlock and himself, Sherlock doesn’t move and has begun breathing evenly, fatigue finally taking its toll. Lestrade falls to a superficial slumber quickly after, and if Sherlock reaches out for him twenty minutes later, it's just the grief talking. And what goes on from there is nothing but the beginning of closure.


End file.
